GAVI Board Members

The Rockefeller Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation is a knowledge-based, global foundation with a commitment to enrich and sustain the lives and livelihoods of poor and excluded people throughout the world. It is a philanthropic organization endowed by John D. Rockefeller and chartered in 1913.

It has four specific goals:

First, our primary focus is on people who are poor and excluded. Poor people, in the United States and elsewhere, tend to suffer disproportionately from ill health, inadequate education and housing, and from environmental degradation. Their life expectancies and the quality of their lives are reduced by factors that are understood and preventable. We recognize that the advancement of humanity rests ultimately on the inclusion of the poor in the process.

Second, we are a truly global foundation, in the sense that we have global awareness and global values.

Third, we aim to improve people’s lives and livelihoods. This focus reveals that we must not deal with problems in isolation. Food, health, jobs and culture are all intertwined in people’s lives.

Fourth, our work relies heavily on knowledge. We base our programs on science, technology, research and analysis. We face difficult and complex challenges. We will be judged by how effective Foundation grantees are at overcoming formidable constraints and finding solutions to difficult problems. This goal requires us to harness the best talent and the most appropriate knowledge.

The Foundation has identified four thematic lines of work: Food Security, Health Equity, Creativity and Culture, and Working Communities. These four are supported and supplemented by a fifth cross-cutting theme of Global Inclusion.

The Foundation’s endowment currently exceeds $3.5 billion. The Foundation’s budget for 2000 will be in excess of $186 million. For more information, visit http://web.archive.org/web/20001208233800/http://www.rockfound.org/

The Rockefeller Foundation’s role in GAVI

The Foundation is a partner in GAVI. Rockefeller’s support of GAVI contributes to the Foundation’s goal of advancing global health equity by pursuing the reduction of avoidable and unfair differences in the health status of populations.